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Last year, a team led by Dr. Peter Stock of UCSF reported on results from a large multicenter study testing the safety and feasibility of transplanting kidneys where both the donor and recipients were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The results, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that the recipients survived nearly as long as non-HIV infected recipients of kidney transplants. As a result of the Stock-led trial, and a just-published paper from Johns Hopkins projecting that 500 to 600 H.I.V.-infected livers and kidneys would become available each year if the ban were repealed, the paradigm appears to be changing. Federal health agencies, including the CDC, are now urging, as reported by the N.Y. Times in today’s editions, that the absolute ban on transplanting H.I.V.-positive organs be lifted.

A New Push to Let H.I.V. Patients Accept Organs That Are Infected

Kidney transplants Found Safe in HIV patients

New England Journal of Medicine – Outcomes of Kidney Transplantation in HIV-Infected Recipients

Estimating the Potential Pool of HIV-Infected Deceased Organ Donors in the United States

“Andre Campbell, M.D. a UCSF professor of surgery, was recognized on March 29 by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for his outstanding service as a trauma and acute care surgeon at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH).”

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UCSF breast surgeon Laura J. Esserman, M.D., M.B.A. (pictured left), and medical oncologist Hope S. Rugo, M.D. are featured on PBS’ “Need to Know” series as pioneers in breast cancer research. Dr. Esserman discussed the I-SPY 2 TRIAL in which pharmaceutical companies collaboratively bring multiple experimental therapies to the marketplace, allowing numerous combinations novel agents to be tested in clinical trials iteratively. Specific drug combinations are personalized to the molecular characteristics of each patient’s tumor using sophisticated biomarker assays. Dr. Rugo is leading a study to improve the quality of life in chemotherapy patients through a new treatment that cools the scalp and prevents or minimizes hair loss.

Potential Breakthroughs in Breast Cancer Research

I-SPY 2 TRIAL: Neoadjuvant and Personalized Adaptive Novel Agents to Treat Breast Cancer

“After a 50th reunion for business school made him “very neck-conscious,” Douglas Weil, 74, signed up for an isolated neck-lift in November with Dr. William Y. Hoffman, the Professor and Chief of the Plastic surgery division at the University of California, San Francisco. “It was one of the last things I ever thought I’d do,” Mr. Weil said, adding he hasn’t thought twice about his baldness. But now he’s thrilled with his sleek neckline, he said, and even told his rabbi about the surgery. The rabbi’s retort? “What men do to please their women!”

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“One of only a handful of physicians with formal training in both vascular surgery and interventional radiology, Dr. Darren B. Schneider has been appointed chief of vascular and endovascular surgery and director of the Center for Vascular and Endovascular Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. He has also been named associate professor of surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College.”

….’As one of the world’s leaders in the minimally invasive surgical procedures, and an expert in vascular surgery, endovascular surgery and interventional radiology, he is uniquely qualified to lead our Center for Vascular and Endovascular Surgery and guide the development of innovative treatments for patients suffering from vascular disease,’ says Dr. Fabrizio Michelassi, chairman of the Department of Surgery and the Lewis Atterbury Stimson Professor of Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College and surgeon-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.”

Read full story at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell News

“Surgeons at UCSF have taken a major step down the path toward less invasive procedures, performing San Francisco’s first gallbladder removal using only a single, small incision hidden within the navel.

The procedure, which took place in May, is a significant advance in the field of minimally invasive surgery, said UCSF gastrointestinal surgeon Jonathan Carter, MD, w surgical team………”

Read Full Article in UCSF Today